Tuesday, Mostly Grumbling Today

It rained today. And then it was humid. Really humid. Worst I've had to deal with in years! It was so icky that just walking from the car to the door was a chore because humidity, especially high humidity, always makes my asthma kick in. Otter had problems with her asthma, and she seldome ever reacts to humidity. She wasn't able to finish karate today, she was in real distress but she bounced back after we came home and she parked on the couch for a while. But she had to use her inhaler several times.

We got Otter's schedule for school today. She has algreba first class. My comment is that at least she'll be getting that one out of the way early in the day! Her foreign language choice is Spanish, that is her last class of the day. We suggested she take Spanish because that is the language she's most likely to use. She has Debate as one of her electives. Somehow, I just don't think that it is going to be a difficult class for her!

Progress is slow at the rent house, but mostly because Bill couldn't get this week off. He's off next week instead. He's nearly finished painting the bathroom, he changed locks and has taken down the hardware in the bathroom so it can be replaced. He's done a lot of little misc. things. Now that we've had time to think about it, I think we made the right decision regarding selling it now. We could still sell it, but in order to get what we really think it is worth we need to do the door work and the plan now is to do that several months down the road - like in a year if we have a tenant change then. Until then, we'll just keep doing what we have been doing.

Since we aren't selling the rent house right now, we will be keeping the P.O. box. We are just about out of the eBay business, but it's a good & safe idea to have a mailing address other than our home for a tenant. So if anybody mails us, the P.O. box address will still be valid.

Sales Tax Free weekend is nearly here! We plan to take full advantage of it. We cleaned out Otter's shoes last night, she's outgrown most of them. She tried on her coat, it will still work for this year. But out of all the millions of pairs of gloves that we have, I could only find two that had both sides! So I guess gloves are on the list as well, although probably not yet as they aren't really in the stores yet. Winter wear should be making an appearance soon, though.

I've given up (for the moment at least) on posting pictures on here. I follow the directions and do everything I'm supposed to, but it never works. So since I can't show you what was in the wonderful surprise box from my friend Shara, I'll just tell you! First was an absolutely adorable stuffed animal set - an Otter mom and baby! Very appropriate, don't you think! My Otter immediately claimed them, they are on her bed with her other stuffed otters. Also a metal platter "TEXAS" of course. It's going to be hung on the wall in the entrance way with all my other TEXAS stuff. She sent me a nice book of proverbs with cute illustrations, a nice card and 4 older Oklahoma maps. The maps are neat by themselves, but I've seen different craft ideas using them. It was very nice to receive all the goodies, Shara. You are very thoughtful! And one of these days, I might actually get a picture on here.

The Magginator got her shots yesterday. She had a great time, she got to go for a car ride and meet all sorts of other doggies, she got lots of attention, walked around the petstore several times and just had a good time in general. Until the vet called us and we walked into the little exam room. That's when she tried to back out the door! When that didn't work, she got in the corner and tried to turn invisible. She got three shots, poor little pin cushion! She was very happy to leave there. As we were walking out, a family was bringing in the biggest German Shepard I have ever seen. Absolutely georgeous dog! And he was happy, until he realized where he was. I could tell exactly when that happened, because he just dropped. All four feet tucked up underneath his body, and he hit the floor. The family was unable to get him to move, it took all of them AND an employee. They finally had to lift the dog up onto a flatbed-type cart and roll him back to get his shots! I didn't feel so bad about Maggie being so silly after that.

Froggy, watch out for sneakies in your yard! After you described the one you saw today, it sounds like it might be the rattly kind. So please don't take any chances. I hope you have a shovel or something to keep with you, in case you suddenly have to decaptitate something slithery.

I saw a bumper sticker today that I really liked. It was a play on the Don't Mess with Texas campaign. It said Don't Mess with Texas Women. I think I might want one of those.

Another Sunday Post!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FROGGY! Just remember, you will always be older than me! :) And younger than Toadly, if that's any consolation.

Sunday again. And a complete change of plans!

I think we are destined to be landlords forever. We spent the day at the rent house. It's not in bad shape, it's pretty clean actually. But we have decided against putting it on the market. We would prefer to sell it, and we could still. But in order to get it up to the standard we'd like so we would be able to get a price we'd like, it needs more work than we can afford at the moment. We are going to have to replace the carpet, which we already knew. But we would also have to replace the stove and the front door. The stove works, but it doesn't look very pretty. We would also want to wall in the current door to the master bedroom and move the door to where it would be entered through the kitchen. Which is how the house originally was, the people we bought it from changed that when they rebuilt it after the fire. (My opinion has always been that they had an insurance fire, and I still think that).

There are a few other things that would need to be done to get it to a selling point, the bedroom door is the biggest one. None of the other things are particularly big, but they would be time consuming and cost more than we have for it at the moment. We are going to have to replace the sliding glass door from the master bedroom, which we did not anticipate but it really needs to be done now. We are going to put french doors there. The dining room light is a ceiling fan, we are going to take the light out of the dining room at home and put it in the rent house, then get a new light to replace it at home.

Bill is going to get started on painting, that's not unusual to have to do when a tenant moves out and we didn't have to paint it the last time. He's going to take the two satellite dishes off the roof and replace one of the windows. The curtains in the living room will be replaced with vertical blinds on the big window and a set of mini-blinds on the side window, which is the one to be replaced. While he's at it, he's going to replace the old & ugly linoleum tile in the front entrance way. Possibly with Pergo wood, which he's also going to put in the hallway. The back door entrance way tile will be replaced, to match what we put in the kitchen when we first turned it into a rent house.

We are probably going to repaint the garage, it's been at least 5 years since we did that and it really needs it.

This coming Wednesday will be 3 years since we moved! It was an exhausting experience. But we're glad we did.

Well, the pizza is on the way so I'm going to post this now!

Friday and I'm glad! Very long week.

We drove by the rent house after work today, the tenant is still there. He had a self-moving van in front of the house and a trailer attached to it so he can put his muscle car on it. The car was sitting behind the trailer, it looks like he had the car filled up with stuff. When I talked to him yesterday, he was hoping to get going today but if he wasn't able to get out early enough he said he would wait until probably Saturday. I don't blame him on that! Since he was still there, I guess he's waiting until Saturday. Our plan is still to go over there on Sunday, unless I hear otherwise from him.

I've been cleaning out stuff, I cleaned out the cookbooks several days ago and sold two big lots of them on eBay. We have a few other books that we have on eBay now. I have several small planter-type vases that really don't work for anything, they are animal shaped mostly. They will probably get put on eBay next week. We're pretty much finished with the eBay business except for a few things, and overhead projectors will still be on eBay for a while until we run out. But I'm trying to clean out stuff and as I do, I find things that might sell. But I am looking forward to being done with it. It was fun, but I think we probably should have quit last year like we originally planned. We still have a few Halloween & Christmas things that we'll put on eBay closer to the correct seasons, no sense in putting up Halloween costumes in July! But they are small and don't take up much room. Remember the box of Nativity sets, Froggy? The one we found at the thrift store when you were here.

Maggie is asleep in the floor beside me. My blogging is accompanied by the sound of a beagle snoring! She's so funny. I got her to dance again this afternoon. Frasier came running, but mostly because he wanted the attention himself. I hope he doesn't decide to try to dance, because when he stands on his back feet he is taller than I am!

It's Been a Few Days...

So I thought I'd better blog again. Before somebody gets on me about it! Don't want any mad Froggies, now do we!?!

Our tenant will be gone tomorrow. I talked to him today, he is planning on leaving early in the morning. My leasing agent called while ago, she will meet us over there Sunday afternoon and she'll do the walk through then. Normally, they are done before the tenant actually leaves but he wasn't through packing & cleaning and didn't think he would be through before late tonight and she really doesn't want to go over there either that late or before dawn tomorrow! Not that I blame her, I wouldn't either. So it will be done without his presence, but I think he'll leave it clean. He's been a good tenant and I know he wants his deposit back, so we don't expect any nasty surprises this time. Unlike the last two times, which were both evictions.

Hopefully, we can get it on the market within a few weeks. I'd like it to be sooner, but Bill can't get off until the week after next so if there is any big work it has to wait until then. We know that the carpet will have to be replaced, we were going to replace it the last time but he had dogs so we didn't.

I just want it to sell, quickly and for what we want. Until it does, we will have two mortgage payments. As Otter says, Oh Joy!

Otter starts 9th grade two weeks from today. We go Tuesday to pick up her schedule and get her locker assignment. The bus should be the same, but we'll check on that to be sure. Seems like they move the bus stop every year, between our house and the next door neighbor's driveway. We'll also be able to order her yearbook and see where her classes are.

Oklahoma finally has a sales-tax free weekend! It's the first Friday through Sunday of August. It's for clothing & shoes mostly. Otter won't need much to start school on, but all of her jeans are suddenly short. Those legs just keep getting longer and longer. She probably needs tennis shoes and maybe some misc. things, but not too much this year. Or at least I don't think she will - we haven't really checked most of her shirts to see if they fit. We will probably start at WalMart on the Friday and then if we don't find what she wants (and what I will let her wear), then we will go somewhere else on the Sunday. And I'm going to give in and buy myself some jeans that fit. I'm tired of constantly having to worry that my jeans are suddenly going to be down around my knees! I know that I have dropped two sizes, and most of my clothes are pretty loose now. I took 4 blouses out of the closet on Thursday and every one went right into the Goodwill pile after I tried them on and was swimming in them. I'm not finished losing weight, so I'm not going to buy a lot of clothes. But I really have got to have some jeans that fit!

We finally finished the book! I stayed up until 11:55 Sunday night and Otter finished it the next morning. It was very good, and it was the perfect end to the story line. It could not have ended better. Thank you Froggy, for buying Otter the set of Harry Potter books. I think it was either a set of 3 or 4, I don't remember which. But she definetely got your money's worth out of them!

Maggie has finally learned the trick we've been working on for weeks! She dances. She sits up on her behind and her back legs, then she puts her front paws up and waves them up and down. When I put my hand down, she puts her paws in them, stands up on her back feet and when we tell her to dance, she does! She's only done it a few times, but it's really cute. She's not the sharpest crayon in the box, so it's taken her a while to learn it and it is going to take more work to get her to remember it. But she's a sweetie. Frasier obviously thinks he's above all that stuff, I've given up on teaching him anything. He can learn, he is about as smart as it gets. He just doesn't want to!

Burning though the book!

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and could not go back to sleep for anything. So I got dressed and went to Wallyworld! I left Bill and the Otter both sleeping, and I was walking into the store at 5:45. I had to get a couple of grocery items, if it had been just a trip for the book I would have dragged the kiddo out of bed and made her go with me!

When I got home, I flipped the pages of the book in her ear a couple of times. Her eyes popped open immediately and she started grabbing! She's over half way through it now, and I'm about a quarter through it. I told her she had to do a few chores, which she did in record time, but that was mostly so I would get a chance at it! She may well finish it today, by tomorrow at the latest. It's pretty good, but it is different from the previous books. No spoilers from me! :)

Our tenant called a couple of hours ago. This time, he really is moving! Probably by the 1st or possibly by the 2nd, but this time for real. I'm not really surprised, although we were hoping he would stay for a while. Or at least move early in the month after he'd paid rent! I've already called our listing agent, she will handle it from here on. She was going to call him and arrange the walk-through, and then as soon as he's out we will see what we need to do. And then she's going to put out the For Sale sign. Hopefully, it will sell fast and for what we want. I wish he had done this earlier or a little later, because August is not the best time as people generally want to be moved well before the school year starts. But I guess we'll just have to leave it all in God's hands. The leasing agent said that we can legally keep his deposit because as per the lease he should have given us 30 days notice. But we don't feel right about that, so unless there is damage we aren't planning on keeping the deposit. Except for the small amount that is non-refundable because of the dogs.

I got all the morning glories stripped off the back fence to about a foot down from the electric wire. It will probably be grown up past the wire again within a few days, that stuff grows fast! But at least now we don't have to worry about the fence itself becoming electrified or the wire shorting out. Frasier never figured out that the fence was turned off for about a week, but as smart as he is it would only have been a matter of time until he did. He spent a lot of time trying to get a locust that was just on the other side of the fence. I finally reached through the fence and pulled the bug inside so he could see it, and then he immediately lost interest in it - just like a kid! If he thought he was being kept from it, he would have probably tried to eat it. Not that I would have let him! I sent it on it's merry way over the fence, and it landed back in the dirt but way out of his vision. And then I had to dump, scrub & refill the dog's outside water dish because it had wrigglers!

Anybody want to buy a 3 bedroom, 1 bath house on the NE side of Tulsa?

News Blackout

Otter & I are on an official news blackout. So we might not even turn on the computers from tonight through about Monday or so. Well, we might turn them on. But we aren't even looking at any news sites that we normally check. I've already seen the title of one news report that was obviously a HP spoiler, and I don't want to know anymore! The publisher shipped some books early, and even though they are asking people not to read them early - get real! If I got one early, I would probably have already finished it by now. So, if you don't hear from us or get email answered it's because we are not online.

I called the electric company today, they are not responsible for my gate being left open yesterday. Neither is the gas company, they read the meter from over the back fence and the water meter is in the front yard. I'm just glad that my next door neighbor happened to see the dogs out in the front and she brought them home to us. There isn't any way that the dogs could have opened this gate, I'm thinking about the kid we saw behind the house a couple of weeks back. If it was him, he was probably unhappy that the shed is also padlocked. And now all the gates are locked.

The final bill from the hospital arrived yesterday. There has either been another payment or they gave me a discount because there was $1,600.00 knocked off from what the insurance EOB said. Always a good thing! Slowly but surely...

We do not want to know!

How the Harry Potter series turns out until we read the books for ourselves. I'm speaking for the Otter here, as well as myself. So, if you think you are doing us a favor by repeating anything you've read/seen/heard/been told, etc. - PLEASE KEEP IT TO YOURSELF! Otter and I are on an official news blackout, and we won't get the book until Sunday so we are going to have to be even more careful about what we read/see/hear than we were the last couple of times.

No more turtle tales, but I did have to empty out my fountain this morning because it had wrigglers. We have enough adult mosquitos to deal with, I really didn't want to breed my own! But since we've had so many frogs in the yard, I have noticed that there are a few less skeeters to deal with. Since I put the bricks in the dog's outside water dish, I have not seen any frogs that couldn't get out. So I guess it's working.

I want to give my friend Sharra a quick shout-out. I'm anxiously awaiting my goodie box, I know it will be special. THANKS! (She might not want to know the end of the Harry Potter series either, so don't post any comments with spoilers on here please).

One of these days I might learn how to post pictures on here. I've tried a few times, and even when I follow the directions it doesn't work. And being the Borg Queen I have to follow the directions! I'll figure it out eventually.

We haven't had rain in about a week. It's been nice. I was beginning to think that we were going to skip summer entirely and just go straight to fall.

3 more weeks until school starts! Then I'll be the mother of a high school student. Urgh. Where have the last 15 years gone?

Quick Post - Movie Review

Well, we just got home from the theather and watching the new Harry Potter movie. It was well worth the extra $$ to get IMAX tickets. IMAX is 3D for the last 30 minutes or so, the big fight scene. The movie was very well done and stuck to the book pretty much. There were obviously a few things that were left out for time, otherwise we would have been in the theater all day long. Yes, Froggy, we did get popcorn. And also sour patch kid candy!

Saturday and more turtle tales!

Otter and I are fine, we have had no pain whatsoever. If there had been the slightest discomfort, we would have gone to the doctor and Bill would have been on the phone tearing the cop a new one. It was a hard enough bump that I wanted to wait until today to decide, although the bumper of the car is only scratched. And the right blinker isn't working right. The bumper will probably stay scratched, the blinker will get fixed.

Frasier was barking at something, he was laying on the ground in the corner of the yard and really seemed to be interested in something. So I went out there, and he had another turtle in his sights. This one was what I've always called a box turtle, round and has yellow markings. It was a female. She has now been relocated to the cow pasture. I think that Frasier had been trying to pick her up in his mouth, the back of her shell had dog drool. She was a lively one. Poor puppy, I keep taking his toys away from him! Of course, if one of those toys should happen to flip that head back and bite him he might not feel the same way!

No rain today! Wow! The jalepeno plants are doing well, they are still very short but they have quite a bit of fruit on them. The bell peppers are producing, they won't be big or have many bells but at least we'll get a few. The cherry tomato plant has 4 more on it and possibly another bud starting. So I'm happy. Not a lot of produce, but at least we got something out of the plants.

Movie tomorrow! And yes, Froggy, we will have popcorn.

Friday the 13th

Which really doesn't mean anything to be except that yesterday was the 12th and tomorrow if the 14th. But some people might think that I should revise my opinion, considering the fact that I got rear-ended today! By a teenage kid who by his own admission was at fault, and by his uncle's admission - the kid has no license. There really is no damage to the car beyond a scratch on the fender and I feel fine but I will keep an eye on myself (and my back) as well as Otter who was in the car at the time, and if I feel the slightest bit of anything at all I will go to the ER tomorrow. The problem was the attitude of the cop who came out, he was borderline rude and refused to take a report because it was "just cosmetic" damage. I even tried to get the cop to ask for our ID, and he wouldn't even do that! Talk about someone who thinks he's God. The boy that hit me did admit that it was his fault and he stayed there, and I feel like it really was an honest accident on his part. The cop couldn't leave fast enough, after he left I told the kid that he really needed to start paying attention when he drives and that if he has another accident and there is damage or injury that if he doesn't have a license he should be prepared to be hauled off to jail. Which wouldn't necessarily happen up here in Backwards, I mean Oklahoma, but I felt like he needed a little Fear of God put into him. I have his name, address & phone number in case I need it. I also have the cop's card, and Bill is considering calling him (after he calms down) and asking to speak to his supervisor.

The boy called his uncle on the phone, and I spoke with the uncle. He offered me money to stop the police report. Which does not sit well with me. I told him, politely but very firmly, that I would let the police handle it and that was the way it was going to be.

(And no, I really don't think it had anything to do with Friday the 13th!).

I Have the Golden Ticket!

Two of them actually. Ok, so they are really lavender and white instead of Golden. And they aren't really to Willy Wonka's castle. They are instead two tickets to the 11:00 a.m Sunday showing of Harry Potter 5 at the IMAX theater. And I have one very happy 15 year old girl! Obviously, we don't think that HP is evil! It's just fiction, it's basically good vs. evil and good does truimph eventually. And it's a whole lot better than some of the things I see kids reading today!

It is supposed to rain again tomorrow. We made it through today without any rain, but we can't seem to get more than one day with no rain. I'd like at least 2 days in a row!

We still have a billion mosquitos, but since the yard has been populated with so many frogs I think that there are a few less mosquitos. Hopefully, anyway. We're getting kind of tired of them!

I read where Bird Flu has finally made it to this country. It's a flock of turkeys that were being readied for slaughter to be food. It was revealed in the normal testing before they are killed & processed, so it probably hasn't entered the food chain. It's also supposed to be a light version of it. But it really was just a matter of time before it got this far. Hopefully, it will be a long time before it shows up again, and especially a long time before the worse version of it hits here.

Is it Friday yet?

Tuesday Now, Only One More Day!!!!

'Till the Harry Potter movie premiere. Otter is just beside herself, but she's not happy that we have to wait until Sunday to see it! But I'm taking her to see it at the IMAX, so it's not like she's missing out any anything. She had asked a friend of hers, but it turned out that the friend's family is leaving for vacation tomorrow and won't be back for several days. So Otter will possibly get to see it twice at the theater, once on Sunday and once when her friend gets back.

But, because she is her mother's daughter, Otter prefers the redhead in the cast! Can't imagine why....... :)

It rained again today, by the way. We still managed to mow the back yard but it was a real chore. The grass was just so wet, and there are still frogs everywhere. We try to watch out for them while we mow, and then we wait for them to move or relocate them ourselves.

The blogger program has been having some problems, not just me but also a few other bloggers I know have had difficulties with the site. So if you try to leave me a comment, it might take you a few tries. I tried to leave a comment for someone else and it never did accept it, so if that happens there is always email if you need to tell me something.

Monday and Back to the Old Grind!

Back to work again, vacation is over! Wish it could have lasted longer, but it was good while it lasted. Except for Bill being sick, that we could have done without. He's better now.

It only took me about and hour and a half to get caught up at work, even after having been gone for a week. It's not a busy office.

Otter and I had a Mother/Daughter Day on Friday. We started that tradition when she was little, where we would spend the day together and just do whatever we wanted - mostly whatever she wanted. As she's gotten older, it has evolved into more shopping than anything else. But I'm not complaining, we enjoy the time together.

Among other things, I bought a skirt, blouse & pair of slacks. And they are all TWO SIZES SMALLER than the rest of my clothes! I'm not buying a lot of new clothes at the moment, as I'm still working on my weight. But I do have to get a few things. So we went to Goodwill. We also went to a few yard sales and found a few misc. things, not anything spectacular though.

Saturday was interesting. We were having our usual Sabbath observance, not doing much but enjoying the time together and resting. Bill noticed a teenage boy out in the field behind the house, he kept coming up to the fence and then backing off. Bill could see something in his hands, so he got the binoculars. The kid was texting someone with his cell phone. It looked like he was interested in the shed. The boy saw Bill watching him through the window, so he got on his bike and rode off. Then he came back a few minutes later and crouched down behind some weeds. He wasn't very smart, because a few weeds does not make a very good hiding place! Every so often he would peek up and he was definitely looking at the shed, we think he was trying to see what was inside. There is a window on that end of the shed, but it was closed so there was no light inside. Bill decided to "intimidate", in his words. He got one of the rifles, put it on his shoulder and casually strolled out the door towards the shed. I was watching out the window, I could see exactly when the boy spotted Bill (and the gun) because he jerked back, then he popped up and walked quickly to his bike - still texting it looked like. Then he got on his bike and booked it! He did not come back. We were pretty sure that he wouldn't be back, since he now knows that not only were we aware of his presence, but that we are also armed. However, I did go buy a lock for the shed door and also put one on the back gate. I think that the reason he kept backing down from the fence was probably because he saw the electric fence signs we have up.

And where were the dogs during all this you might ask? THEY WERE ASLEEP!!!!!

On Sunday, Bill felt better but not the best so he decided not to go to church. He mentioned mowing the lawn, I told him that I was going to stay home and keep him from mowing. He told me he would make a bargain - I would go to church and he would stay home but not mow. Well, I'm smarter than that. So I told him that I was taking the gas can with me, since the mower is out of gas and I didn't trust him to not mow. And I did exactly that, it stayed in the trunk of my car the whole time Otter and I were in church and Sunday School. I did fill the can up on the way home, but it rained again this afternoon so the jungle, I mean lawn, still needs to be mowed. Maybe tomorrow.

Otter went to work with me today. She was uneasy about staying home by herself since the incident on Saturday, and we weren't comfortable with it either. So we packed a lunch and she spent the day in "her office" as she calls the copy/file cabinet room that is off of my office. And she made money, EL gave her a dollar just for being there. He usually does that, he spoils her rotten. She's going back tomorrow, it's karate day and it will be easier if she's with me so I don't have to come all the way home and then back again.

Rescued several more frogs the last few days. One of them keeps getting stuck in the dog's water dish. Today, I put two bricks in the water dish so it can at least get out on it's own. There are billions of the little hoppers in the yard. Magginator was rolling on something yesterday, I went to check and it was what was left of a grass snake. She was not happy when I took it away and then tossed it over the fence!

And it turns out that we are not Cravens after all. We always knew that there had been an adoption in the family history on Mom's side, because of the Cherokee connection. It turns out that one of our ancestors was taken in by a white family, sometime after he left the Trail of Tears and made his way back to Arkansas. He took the last name of the family, Cravens, as his own. We don't have a lot of information, but the family legend we affectionately call Uncle Ben is one of those interesting but true stories. Go to Google, type in Outlaw Ben Cravens. You'll be amazed. Ben was probably Mom's Dad's brother, and even though he was the black sheep of the family he was in contact with his brother.

It gets better. Dad's family was more than just a little bit Indian. Little Gramma, as we called his mom, was possibly a Full Blood Osage. So now I have a whole bunch more research to do, and I am enjoying it. I really enjoyed what I learned about the Cherokee culture, now I'm going to research the Osage.

I took off the guestbook feature. Nobody ever signed it anyway.

Thursday already? Our vacation is nearly over!

But it has been a good one, with the exception of Billyboy being sick. He's better today, the fever is nearly gone and he feels "less bad" at times. He's been parked in front of the tv most of the day, which is exactly what he needs to do. Otherwise, he would probably be up doing something he shouldn't and getting worse.

There were quite a few fireworks last night, we sat out on the deck and watched them for a long time. Otter did some of her sparklers and I even did a few. That is, when I wasn't feeding mosquitos! I'm really glad that we can buy the permit now and have fireworks legally. The city makes a boatload of $$ off of the permits, and it goes to some of the police department's programs. It works really well.

I cleaned off my craft shelves! I figure that if I haven't used it in longer than the 3 years we've lived here, I'm not going to miss it. I filled up a 30 gallon trash bag and then I have two good-sized paper grocery sacks filled with stuff to donate to Goodies or Sally's. I condensed three shelves down to 2 and could probably even get rid of more, but I decided to stop at that point. I have a few things to put on eBay as well.

A few of the things still on the shelf is stuff that was Mom's, some of her California Raisins and small stuff like that. It is not going anywhere! Eventually, I might get it packed away, I still find little things from her and Dad and they are collected in a box for now.

I've been busy today. I did all the laundry (and actually got it all put away this time as soon as it was done!), ironed all Bill's work clothes so that I don't have to do that again for a week and a half, the shelf in the garage, we took the leaf out of the table, just lots of stuff around the house. The dining room looks so big now and the table looks so small, we put the leaf in before Froggy came to visit and I'd kind of gotten used to having an oval table again. But now it's round and smaller. Sigh. Actually, it fits much better without the leaf because the china cabinet is so big.

I know I said I was going to start posting polls on here once in a while, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I might eventually though, you never know! But I will probably take the guestbook off since nobody ever signs it.

Otter just informed me that she has 15 bug bites just on her feet! Probably all mosquitos, too. Wow!

Well, I'm off to sit on my deck and read now. And probably fend off mosquitos while I'm at it. We finally found the pump for my fountain, and we got it cleaned up and running on Tuesday before everyone got here so I'm going to plug it in and enjoy the sound of running water that is not rain for once.

Happy Independence Day!

Let's all remember that this day is about way more than just a fireworks show or a picnic. I think people tend to forget that it really is the birthday of this wonderful country, America, that God has blessed us with. I am very thankful that He put me here and not somewhere else.

Our celebration was last night, and it was a lot of fun. Scott & Angela with their two kids, and Robin with her two kids are here from Texas before going on to New Mexico. Everyone came over to our house yesterday, Bill grilled burgers & dogs and then when it got dark we set off the arsenal we bought at the fireworks stand.

Broken Arrow has a permit for $20.00 that allows you to legally shoot them off. It has to be posted in the yard where it is visible if any police drive by, and there is also paperwork that has to be shown if requested - that is probably so that people won't be inclined to steal the sign, I guess. We really enjoyed having everyone over, and the dogs loved the company.

Both of Scott's kids are just precious, but Frasier was especially taken with his little girl. At one point, she put her hands on both sides of Frasier's head and kissed him on the nose. After that, the dog was just in love with her! Scott's little boy is going to be a real lady killer in a few years, no doubt about it.

We blocked both dogs in the house last night while we were shooting off the fireworks. They aren't scared of them, Frasier went inside once we started but he wasn't concerned. But we had to open the gate a lot and I was afraid that smart dog would sieze the opportunity to get out! And Magginator isn't afraid of anything (except bubbles for some reason and she doesn't like cows), knowing her she probably would have gone over to see what everyone was doing and run off with something flaming in her mouth!

The plan for today was to go over to Don & Darlene's house this afternoon, but Bill has been in bed with a fever most of the day. He decided to lie down for a while and rest about 11:00 this morning. I went in there about 30 minutes later and he had a fever of 101. I took it again later, it was 102. He doesn't have any flu symptoms or anything, he just has a fever and doesn't feel too good. So he's stayed in bed all day. I called Don and told him, he understood.

Otter still has some sparklers left, she'll probably light them up after dark. We did all the big stuff last night, and I'm really glad we did now that Bill is under the weather.

I think we might finally be finished with constant rain. But I'm not sure if I should say that out loud or not! It was clear last night but it is partly cloudy today. Except for getting the paper this morning, I haven't been out of the house so I'm not really sure how warm it is. But I think it's probably pretty warm.

Sunday Again and Still Raining!

I'm bummed. I haven't been able to sit out on my deck for several days, because it's always raining when I head out there! I think we're between showers at the moment, but the deck & chairs are too wet. I've drained the plants more times than I can count.

Yesterday, a little brown frog hopped up onto the deck and sat there while it rained. After the rain quit, the little brown frog hopped off. I guess he was enjoying it.

The plan for today included yard work. I don't think we'll be able to get much done out there, so housework it is! We will be able to do a little bit outside, just probably not mowing. The yard is in bad need of a mowing, it looks like a jungle from all the rain and it's only been a week since Bill mowed it!

I really won't be surprised to see animals in pairs the next time I go outside.


LATER UPDATE:

It finally quit raining! The sun came out and Bill mowed the lawn. He had to keep stopping and waiting for the horde of frogs to move on. I had to move a few of them for him. We are hoping that they will start eating the millions of mosquitos we have to deal with lately.

Bill also trimmed the last tree in the back yard. Now the front ones are moved up on the list. The front trees will be harder and they are in bad shape with lots of dead limbs in them. He also cleaned out a blockage in one of the front rain gutters.